In order for a vehicle owner who is considering selling his/her vehicle to know the purchase price of the vehicle, usually the owner must bring the vehicle in an auto dealer or a used-car dealer, or a vehicle appraiser must go to the vehicle owner's house or the like where the vehicle is located so that the vehicle appraiser can examine the vehicle directly. To eliminate the inconvenience caused by such travel of vehicle or person, it has been proposed to provide a vehicle appraisal system for appraising a vehicle from a remote location by using communication means such as a telephone (see, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (kokai) No. 11-184910).
In the above prior art system, however, the information required for vehicle appraisal can be obtained only through conversation with the person or client requesting the appraisal (e.g., the vehicle owner), and therefore, it is difficult to acquire detailed information about the current state of the vehicle, tending to result in an inaccurate purchase price estimation of the vehicle provided from the appraiser. Alternatively, it may be conceived to have the client take images of the vehicle with a camera and appraise the vehicle based on these images. However, the client may lack enough knowledge or skill for taking appropriate images for vehicle appraisal, which can necessitate the client to take images of the vehicle once again, putting undesired burden on the client.